


Coffee Breath

by rancidflies



Series: Ineffable Bureaucracy Shenanigans [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/M, Gen, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Other, also i wrote half of this at like 5 am so i apologize for any grammar mistakes, and beelze has a little secret, gabriel tries coffee for the first time, its good to read this with restaurant ambience in the background tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 06:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20385163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rancidflies/pseuds/rancidflies
Summary: “Unlike you, with your...infectionsand dirty eating habits, I don't like to indulge in gross matter. It's disgusting, thoroughly.” Gabriel sat there, innocently watching Beelzebub as if his words hadn't just rotted the demon's temper.“Just drink it.”“No.”“You're annoying.”





	Coffee Breath

“_Just try it, shitstick_.”

Beelzebub edged the cup of black liquid toward the other end of the booth, where Gabriel was uneasily sitting.

They were settled at a table in the far corner of a beautiful restaurant. Of course, it was only beautiful to Beelzebub. The place served food, and God Herself could certainly vouch for how much they liked to _eat_. That was the only reason why they could call the establishment beautiful, really.

The demon physically couldn't call it a date, but it was one. It had been Gabriel's idea after he'd learned about how frequently the other two traitors went out. Of course, it wasn't the same place, but they still had to keep up appearances, and Beelzebub would rather disintegrate than turn down a nice meal.

“I will do no such thing. That is a wretched liquid that I do not wish to contaminate myself with,” Gabriel finally responded, refusing the drink with his pompous little accent, the one Beelzebub couldn't truthfully say they hated but did anyway. Some things were meant to be kept a secret, and that was one of them.

“You're going to.”

“I will _not_!”

“I will not,” the demon sneered in a low voice, rolling their eyes incitingly. “It's not poison. Not yet.”

“_Yet_?” Gabriel questioned quickly, his eyes widening to the size of a twenty pence. The expression made Beelzebub burst into quiet laughter, and then their devilish smile faded as they answered the angel.

“I'll turn it to poison in your mouth if you don't try it soon.” That statement seemed to startle Gabriel even more, and the demon's chest was filled with some kind of prideful feeling.

Gabriel tensed his shoulders and placed his hands on the table, seemingly trying to stall the situation. “Could we at least... Could we make it less bitter? Humans say that this stuff is bitter, right?”

After letting out a soft huff, Beelzebub reached toward the salt and pepper shakers and pulled out three cups of creamer from behind them. Sugar packets also managed to find their ways into their small hands, and they placed the items in front of Gabriel. “Add that. Makes it sweeter.”

Gabriel, as if the coffee would miraculously disappear if he took long enough to avoid it, slowly began to add the sugar, then the creamer. He struggled to keep his fingers from touching the milk, but a bit of it splashed up onto him, and he visibly shuddered. He glanced up when he was finished, reluctantly pushing the empty containers and trash toward Beelzebub to get their attention. They were chowing down on some type of fish dinner that smelled awfully like vinegar and salt, and Gabriel swore that if his blasted coffee tasted the same way, there wouldn't be a clean table in front of them anymore.

Not that it hadn't already gotten befouled by Beelzebub's messy eating habits. If they weren't trying to keep up appearances to the humans, Gabriel was sure that the demon wouldn't even be using their fork so politely. Or perhaps, not at all.

“Done?” Beelzebub looked up from their plate, vinegar sauce dripping from their thin lips. Thankfully, they reached for their napkin and wiped it all away, but the bit of the tabletop between them and the plate was drenched. They didn't seem to want to clean that part. Gabriel nodded at them and returned his gaze to the now lighter-coloured drink. It looked slightly less unappealing with the additions, but still quite so.

“I don't understand why you're taking so long,” Beelzebub piped up, their accent lingering slightly as they strove to pronounce their 's' words more prominently. It was a challenge they'd been dealing with since the beginning of, well, everything.

The taller male seemed to pause for a moment, carefully thinking up a response and spitting it out. “I like to be clean, inside and out. Coffee is not good for that.” The man rectified his posture and lifted his eyes to meet the arctic blue ones across the table. “Unlike you, with your... _infections_ and dirty eating habits, I don't like to indulge in gross matter. It's disgusting, thoroughly.” Gabriel sat there, innocently watching Beelzebub as if his words hadn't just rotted the demon's temper.

“Just drink it.”

“_No_.”

“You're annoying.”

The archangel scoffed and hesitantly touched the handle of the white mug, his whole hand wrapping around it childishly. Beelzebub could only stare at the man's struggles from afar, though they did decide to butt in after seeing Gabriel attempt to lift it like that.

“Stop.” They commanded, leaning over the table and taking it upon themself to fix Gabriel's sloppy grip. They didn't wish to touch him for very long, so after repairing Gabriel's hold on the mug, they immediately retracted their hand. Something tingled on their pale skin once they'd let go, which resulted in them harshly wiping their palms onto their clothed thighs to get rid of the sensation. “Lift it like that, now,” they told him, returning to their abhorrent fish meal.

That was the problem. Gabriel didn't _want_ to lift it, because lifting it meant he had to take a sip of it, and even if that sip was as measly as anything, Gabriel would still know it had been in his mouth, and he would still know that somehow, somewhere, he would be infested with bacteria. And then, there was the unpleasant thought of having to get rid of the liquid through the sickening rituals humans often took part in during the day. Bodily fluids made him feel nauseous—however, there was an important part that he had never truly addressed. Gabriel had never actually tried doing those things. The rumours and speculations in Heaven had brought him to believe that being corporeal had a ridiculous amount of disgusting downsides, such as those aforementioned bathroom rituals. He'd never really experienced it by himself.

Perhaps it wouldn't be too awful if he had one sip...

_Just one. If it would make Beelzebub shut their mouth_.

Beelzebub interrupted Gabriel's thoughts by speaking loudly to him, chewing slightly as they spoke. “What are you waiting for, another doomsday? Just drink it. You're making yourself look weird by staring at it like that.”

Beelzebub, on the other hand, was looking forward to seeing Gabriel's expression after drinking the bitter coffee. They knew he'd never had it before in his ageless lifetime, and that was what made it so exciting.

An apprehensive ache began to sprout in the pit of Gabriel's material stomach. His cheeks were turning a guilty shade of red as time ceaselessly went on, and it seemed as though the hot mug in his hands would be dropped any second because of his trembling. Following a short glance around the restaurant, Gabriel lifted the mug up to his mouth and pressed the rim of it against his bottom lip, the pressure making his skin turn white. Then, with his eyes shut tight, he tipped the cup back and worriedly shivered upon the feeling of warmth on his tongue.

There didn't seem to be as much bitterness as he'd previously expected, but it did make his mouth quite dry. The sweetness of the sugar clashed with the coffee's natural vanilla flavour and it was, overall, a very pleasurable first sip.

Gabriel didn't catch himself taking another one.

_He liked it._

“Oh...” Beelzebub reacted, clearing their throat soon after as if they hadn't meant to let that little word slip. They lowered their gaze until they were promptly staring at their nearly-empty plate, disbelief clear on their features. They hadn't actually expected Gabriel to like it. “You like it?”

“Mmn—” Gabriel started, hesitating. He didn't wish to be honest with the demon, but it was almost like they were expecting a positive answer, so he gave them one. “A bit.”

“I... I wanted you to.”

“Excuse me?”

Gabriel looked up to see Beelzebub being metaphorically suffocated by their embarrassment. Their eyes were still lowered and their cheeks had a pleasant red tint across them. Their voice had the impression that they'd done something horribly wrong, and that they felt guilty of it. In actuality, they had.

_They'd been fraternizing, and they'd gotten a bit too attached_.

“Don't think I haven't been noticing how tired you are. Heaven's stressing you out... Don't lie to me.” Beelzebub demanded unexpectedly. Their eyebrows furrowed and they lifted their head, glaring into Gabriel's lavender eyes, which held quite a bit of confusion. “You don't have to fake it. I'm tired, too.”

It was the truth. With that of the fake Armageddon and it having failed entirely, they both had been forced to complete an ungodly amount of paperwork. It unquestionably sucked having a desk job in Hell, but it was even worse to have one in Heaven, Beelzebub had heard.

The coffee was meant to perk Gabriel up, to give him back his usual kick so that Beelzebub could continue hating him in that familiar way they always did. They cared about it enough to rush him into trying it, and now they weren't going to let it go. Maybe it would even become a little habit of theirs, going for coffee whenever Gabriel felt like it was needed.

They hoped so.

“It's supposed to wake you up,” Beelzebub informed him, watching the angel lift the cup up and take another, longer sip of the liquid inside of it.

Gabriel could feel his stomach churning slightly, but it wasn't awful. It was the churning and aching of a stomach that had been empty for millions of decades, but the warmth from the coffee was satisfying it slowly. Aside from that, Gabriel could hardly believe that Beelzebub cared so much about some tiny inconvenience such as his exhaustion. It was completely unlike them, but he knew better than to question it.

_Maybe their friendship was beginning to deepen, or something_.

Whatever the case, he didn't mind the respect. It was all the care he was going to get for a while, at least.

“You're getting soft,” Gabriel teased, and there it was. His usual energy, the asshole demeanour that Beelzebub had just barely begun to miss getting angry about.

“I am not, I just—”

“Don't lie, bee. It's appreciated.”

“...Oh.”

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! this isnt the best writing but the thought of beelze getting gabriel to try something and him actually liking it is very endearing to me so i hope u liked it too!!
> 
> russian translation by Goldy-Gry: https://ficbook.net/readfic/8811761


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